Starting Smart and Strong

Building Robust Early Learning Systems

San Jose

Maureen Casey

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Maureen Casey

PRE-K TEACHER, SAN JOSE

“In past training, it always felt like it’s just the new thing that teachers are supposed to be doing. But now we really are all behind it. We’re seeing the data and how much better things are getting because we’re doing the social, emotional learning and growth in the classroom.”

Maureen Casey is a special education pre-K teacher in the Franklin-McKinley School District in East San Jose. She received training and coaching to improve how she teaches social and emotional skills in her classroom to make sure children can succeed in kindergarten and beyond. The school district is working to make sure the training has buy-in from teachers like Casey, that educators have a say in how data is collected and that educators are reflecting on data in ways that they find useful to improve their own classroom practice.

Bernadette Sangalang 

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Bernadette Sangalang

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES DIRECTOR, PACKARD FOUNDATION 

“We had our foundation way of doing things. We had to learn to listen in a deeper way.”

Bernadette Sangalang was a new program officer when she and her colleagues first came up with the vision for Starting Smart and Strong. A social worker by training, Sangalang was not used to the power imbalance embedded in the grantee foundation relationship. “As a social worker, you partner. You must meet people where they are at.” Yet still, as foundation staff, Sangalang and her colleagues had certain ideas about the way the initiative should work, how to define success, and the right way to offer support and resources. Over the life of the Starting Smart and Strong initiative, as relationships with community leaders grew, they learned to step back and trust local expertise. Today, as the Director of Children and Families for the Packard Foundation, Sangalang uses all she has learned in their new funding strategy in maternal and child health. This includes her approach to working in community as a grantmaker and knowledge about when to let communities lead. “All of it is about putting families and children at the center.”